


As Long As I Know That You Know

by sambethe



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-13
Updated: 2014-01-13
Packaged: 2018-01-08 15:31:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1134345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sambethe/pseuds/sambethe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>7 birthdays in the life of Rose Tyler - Defender of the Earth</p>
            </blockquote>





	As Long As I Know That You Know

**Author's Note:**

> Written for dwliterotica's September 2007 prompt of 'Birthdays'. However, minus a brief spot of Rose/Mickey, this is so gen it hurts.
> 
> AU at one point, vague spoilers through 'Last of the Time Lords.' Written long before the airing of Journey's End.

Jackie bustles around the kitchen, trying to unpack the shopping bags laden with sweets, a cake and more decorations than the flat can really bear that litter the countertop. The clock above the counter reads half one and glimpsing it, she swears under hear breath and questions just where her sister, who'd promised to come around early and help with the decorating, has gone off to.

A moment later the bell rings and Jackie trips over an errant roll of crepe paper as she makes her way to the door.

'That'd better be you, Margaret,' she calls, 'because if it isn't, I'm going to murder you when you do bother to turn up.'

She opens the door and finds her sister standing there looking suitably apologetic. Margaret starts to open her mouth but Jackie immediately cuts her off with a wave of her hand. 'Oh, shut it. Doesn't matter anyway. Everything is in the kitchen, so make yourself useful. I need to check on Rose.'

Margaret glares at her but heads into the kitchen without saying a word. Jackie goes down the hall and pushes open the door to Rose's bedroom. She watches as her small chest rises and falls with each breath. Reaching her crib, Jackie bends and runs the back of her hand along her soft cheek.

She knows everyone thinks she is completely mad, throwing a party for a baby who won't remember it. But there's been so little to celebrate in the past several months and she needs this to remind her of the good things. It has been one year since Rose had arrived. Jackie may have made a hundred little mistakes since then, trying to work out this motherhood thing on her own. However, Rose is alive and whole and happy and that is something to celebrate. 

*

He sits on a park bench, a newspaper open to the day's crossword lies next to him, long since abandoned. Truth be told, and contrary appearances otherwise, the infatuation with clever word play that is central to the British crossword infuriates him. He prefers the relative directness of its American counterpart. Instead Jack watches a young girl climb the merry-go-round and call to her friends to spin her. He smiles as the ride starts up and she laughs gleefully, her blonde plaits swinging out behind her. 

He knows he shouldn't be here, or that he shouldn't be this close. It's why he doesn't come to London often - the temptation to look in on her is too great. There are still years to go before he gets to meet her. He pauses at that for a moment. What is to come for her has already happened for him; he won't have the opportunity to live those events again. He wonders if he, this self, will ever have the opportunity to again know the adult this girl becomes.

He shakes his head at the train of thought. He's spent fifteen years as a time agent and still it fascinates him - the manner in which time and events unfold. It also makes his head swim a bit.

Rose laughs again and he's pulled from his thoughts. Jack looks up to find her sprawled against the metal bars of the now still merry-go-round, face flushed and an all too familiar grin spread across her wide mouth. He briefly entertains the thought of getting up and giving it another spin just to hear that laugh again.

But then a voice calls out across the park and he's once again interrupted mid thought.

'Rose Marion Tyler!'

Rose picks herself up immediately and Jack sees a short, bleach blonde woman walking towards her. 

'You were supposed to be home an hour ago! Your grandfather's coming for your birthday and I'm meant to be home finishing up tea not chasing you down halfway across London and back!

'Yes, mum,' Rose says unapologetically, waving at her friends before running over to where her mother stands, looking less cross than her words would have you believe.

Jack stands, buttons up his coat to ward of the April chill and heads off in the opposite direction from them, leaving his still forgotten paper lying on the bench behind him.

*

Shareen walks into Rose's bedroom and finds her laid out across the bed, idly flipping through past issues of OK! She rolls her eyes and flops down next to her, her arm landing right across the one Rose is reading.

'Oi!' she cries and pulls the magazine roughly out from under her.

Shareen rolls her eyes again. 'Don't tell me you're going to spend the day doing nothing more than reading these stupid things,' she says, holding up one of the offending magazines like it were a dead rat.

'What else am I going to do?' Rose replies flatly. 'It's not like there is anything to do around here that we haven't done a million times before.'

'You must be joking. You'd think we live in the middle of a sheep field in Wales the way you go on.'

Rose sticks her tongue out. 'You know what I mean. Get up, go to school, go to the park and hang out until it gets dark, go to bed, start it all over again the next day.'

Shareen gets up off the bed and picks up the knapsack she left at the door. She then tosses it at Rose, being sure it hits her in the head along the way.

'Ow! What'd you do that for?'

''Cause you're being a cow. Now open it up so we can go and enjoy your birthday. We're supposed to meet everyone in an hour.'

'What's in here?' she asked, shaking the bag.

Shareen just gives her a look and Rose unzips the bag and upends it. A pile of clothes come tumbling out.

'What's this for?'

'Stole them from my sister's closet, so you better enjoy yourself. She's going to kill me if she realises I've taken them.'

Rose jumps off the bed, boredom apparently forgotten, and stands in front of the mirror trying out different combinations. 'So who all is coming with us?' she asks, eyeing herself a black camisole. 

'You mean, will Mickey be there?' she replies with a smirk.

Rose glares at her tosses the shirt at her head. 'Bitch.'

Shareen laughs. 'Tart!' Then tossing the shirt back she says, 'now get dressed already. We're going to be late.'

*

Rose is lying down next to him snoring softly. Nothing but a sheet separates her skin from his. Mickey lets his eyes follow the curve of her breast and the line of her thigh beneath that sheet and he all he wants to do is wake her so that he touch every inch of her skin. 

They spend most of their days now fucking - at both their homes, in the back of his car, a few times against the wall of the alley behind the pub, even once in the loo at club she and Shareen always drag him to. He likes to think it is because they're in some sort of honeymoon phase, happy to be back together and in love and all that rot, but part of him knows that rings hollow, that there is a fever to it that feels like they both have something to prove.

He runs his hand the length of her shoulder and down her arm before cutting over to smooth it along her stomach. Wrapping it around her waist, he pulls her back and presses himself against her. It's the best reminder he has that she's real and here and his. She's been back two months and he still can't convince himself that she'll stay, that Jimmy was a fluke, a phase, a mistake, that she won't run again the minute something - someone - better, more interesting comes along. 

He took her out for her birthday, her 18th, that night. He'd wanted it to be special so there had been flowers, dinner at a restaurant whose tables were lit with candles and a long walk during which he'd surprised her with a bracelet she'd been eyeing at the shop. She smiled and laughed and kissed him so thoroughly and completely that for a moment he could swallow his doubts and believe.

But now the nagging feeling has returned along with the guilt it brings. It flares in the pit of his stomach and spreads up his chest until he aches. He clutches her tighter in response and kisses the back of her neck. When she murmurs some sleepy nonsense and snuggles further in to him, he can't help but smile. However, the unspoken question remains, _just how long are you planning on staying, Rose?_

*

51 days, 5 hours and 27 minutes have passed on Earth since Rose Tyler first stepped foot on the TARDIS, though the Doctor isn't really aware of it as such. Time moves differently when you travel like he does, like _they_ do. It slows down and moves forward and backward. Its rate isn't constant and it blurs around the edges. Besides, even with all the time he's spent on Earth, he's never really got a good sense of the passage of days there. 

Rose is also not aware of this fact.

If she were, she'd know it is her birthday. She's 19. It's been nearly two months and the police have all but given up on finding her. Mickey's been in for questioning three times. Her mum's printed another round of flyers and has widened the area where she plans to post them.

Instead the two of them sit on a pair of lounge chairs wearing oversized sunglasses, drinking violently green cocktails and watching a pair of suns set on the horizon.

Between sips of his drink he watches her. There is something about this one, though he'd be hard pressed to articulate exactly why he feels this way. He's had companions before, both the willing and not so willing; it's nothing new. But none have relished it like she does. He'd almost say she thrives on it.

He wonders at that - what drives her wanderlust. He wonders what is it that happened to cause it to pull as strongly as it does. He also wonders what, if anything, would cause it to fade. He's more than aware of why he travels, but he doesn't quite understand why anyone else would choose to live this way.

Rose catches him staring and he enjoys the resulting blush. 'What?' she asks. 'Do I have something on my face?' She raises a hand and wipes at her cheek.

'Nothing,' he says. 'Just wondering where to next.'

She smiles. 'You have anything as beautiful as this?' she says and extends her arm to gesture at the sky.

He shakes his head but offers her a smile. 'Dunno. I'm sure we can find something.'

She smiles back and standing up, offers out her hand. 'Lead on, Doctor'

*

The Doctor sets his purchase on the table along with a glass of orange juice before sitting down himself to watch as the crowd winds itself through Djemaa el Fna. Dusk is falling and with it the crowd and the smoke from the food stalls grow thick and the sound of the music climbs to near deafening levels. He's in awe of it all – the noise, the movement, the smells.

It is some time - his drink is half gone - before he spots Rose sitting across the square from him. She's having a young girl paint an ivy-like pattern up and around her wrist. She is smiling and talking rapidly and the girl struggles to keep her wrist steady. He laughs at the site of Rose trying to talk without the use of her hands.

Finally the girl finishes and Rose hands her several bills. He watches as she looks around, apparently trying to decide what to do next when she sees him. He immediately feels a smile on his lips matching the one she gives him.

'Where'd you get off to?' she asks as she sits down next to him. 

'Nowhere in particular. Mostly wandered. What about you?' he says, indicating to her empty hands. 'Gone over an hour and nothing to show for it?'

Rose shrugs. 'Mum called.'

'And how is dear Jackie? Missing me terribly I'm sure.'

'Apparently, it’s my birthday. My 20th, or my 21st actually,' she says with her brow furrowed. 'Keep forgetting I missed a year.'

'Really?' he says, the potential celebratory options already spinning about his head. 'Rose Tyler's birthday. Good thing I bought you a present then, isn't it?'

'Present?' she asks, eyes widening. 'For me? Let me see!'

He grabs the box off the table and hides it behind his back. She reaches across and tries to take it from him. 

'No fair!' she cries and puts on a pout.

He laughs and raises an eyebrow. 'You want to cry foul and then pout? I hardly think that's a fair negotiating tactic.' 

Rose smirks and holds out her hand. He relents and hands it over.

She slowly pulls it up out of its nest of tissue paper and stares at it curiously. 'You bought me a box?'

'That,' he says while plucking it up out of her hand, 'is not just a box, I'll have you know. You have to press it just so -' His fingers brush lightly along several spots and the box opens with a small click. 'See?'

Rose picks it back up out of his hand and looks it over. 'Still,' she says, now obviously holding back laughter, 'you bought me a box.'

He rolls his eyes and sighs. 'Fine, fine, disparage me and my present. How would you like to mark the occasion then?'

'Don't think you are getting off easily, Doctor.' Poking him in the chest for emphasis she says, 'I've missed at least one birthday thanks to you. I think you owe me cake, balloons, a few drinks, possibly a dance and maybe even a chance at operating the TARDIS?'

The Doctor grabs the arm of her free hand and tucks it safely under his own. 'I may do many things for you, Rose, but you're barking if you think I'm handing over the operating manual to the TARDIS.' 

When she tilts back her head and lets out a laugh, he revels in the sound of her laugh and leads her down the street.

*

It’s been five years since the events at Canary Wharf and most days Rose is able to put her life as it was behind her. She's got her mum and Peter, and Maddy is more than a handful for the three of them. Mickey and Jake are around more than they're not and they've even managed to add a few others to their small circle. Torchwood keeps her more than busy and she'd by lying if she said she wasn't grateful for the distraction it provides.

She often tells herself that it's what he wanted her to do, what he asked her to do - live life, each day. And because she doesn't know what else to do, she does just that. But she'd also be lying if she said that life wasn't in her thoughts always, just below the surface of the ordinary. She's reminded of it in overheard snippets of others' conversations, familiar gestures in the hands of a stranger, or in a stark reminder of time's passage. And when that happens she remembers it all with perfect clarity and the life she's built here feels more than a little empty.

All of which is why she's here on the night of her 27th birthday creeping down a dark hallway carrying nothing but a torch and a mobile, following up on a vague lead that came across her desk earlier. It is easier, doing this, than facing a reminder of just how much time has gone.

So far nothing has come of the outing. It's just an empty building with even emptier rooms. The only sound is that of the dripping water from the pipe that runs above her head. She's about to give up and turn back when she hears shouting and suddenly there is someone running towards her.

It happens so quickly that she almost doesn't have a chance to process the fact of exactly who it is she's seeing and by that time he's nearly crashed in to her. She knows she's standing there like an idiot, her mouth gaping, refusing to form even the most basic of sound.

He, however, doesn't miss a beat.

'Where did you come from?' he asks, looking around. 'What are you doing here? No one should be here,' he says still looking confused. 'Well, never mind that really. We've about three minutes before the individuals behind me sort themselves out and when they do they will not be in a pleasant mood. I suggest we not be here when they do.'

She closes her eyes and when she opens them again he's still standing there looking just as he did the first time they met.

'I'm the Doctor, by the way,' he says, grabbing on to her hand, seemingly oblivious to her shock. 'Now, if you don't mind, run!'

When he tugs she follows without a second thought, because if nothing else, she knows how to do this.


End file.
